We had to do
some shoveling before we could bump Erika up these stairs in a wheel chair in
April. Now we have good news on two fronts. One is that the late April snow is
melted so that this shortest stairway to our cottage is safer. Two is that Erika
can now walk up and down these front stairs --- no need for a wheel chair.
However, she still has excruciating leg pain most of the time. Our inside lift
will be installed on May 21 about the same time our new propane backup generator
will also be installed. During May 6-8 we will
once again be down in Boston for a
myelogram. The saga of her recent surgeries is chronicled at
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/Erika2007.htm

It's been
sunny and beautiful up here but the winds are still cold. I love the coolness of
a mountain springtime. We have nearly 16 hours of daylight now which is double
winter's light. They've
commenced to golf (in warm jackets and hats) behind our cottage, although Bob
Jensen has no time for such frivolity. He's too busy in retirement. Retirement?
What in the heck is that?

Paul
Heywood from the historic
Homestead down
the road
tapped two of our big maple trees and brought us a quart of sweet maple
syrup. The young daughters of Lon and Nancy Henderson are raising four ducklings
in a Sunset Hill House
bathtub. Ducklings grow at an amazing rate. These will be moved to a pond on the
golf course in early June. Then the worry will be
coyotes,
bobcats, and
fisher cats.
These fat predators, however, focus more on our many
wild turkeys
up here. Fortunately there are no alligators or dangerous snakes in New
Hampshire. Bull frogs in our small pond beside our cottage sometimes disturb our sleep and night,
but not as bad as the occasional screams of fisher cats in the woods. I
especially love the night calls of the
hoot owls.

If you look
close at the pond above you will see a white speck that is really a mother duck.
About a mile away a New Hampshire landmark called
Polly's Pancake
Parlor at Hildex Farm will be opening for Mothers Day.

Online Video, Slide Shows, and Audio
In the past I've provided links to various types of music and video available
free on the Web.
I created a page that summarizes those various links ---
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/music.htm

An Electrifying Life Off the Ground (with a physics lesson)
---
http://www.glumbert.com/media/highpower
Ed Scribner claims the guy on top of the helicopter is accounting professor
David Albrecht. I think Ed was down below trying to toss up a grounding cable.

PodcastSex Traffic, Third Most Lucrative International
Criminal Activity Dechen Tsering from Global Fund for Women introduced
Thailand/Cambodia service learning trip participants to this underground
industry by which millions of women and girls each year are tricked, trapped,
bought, sold, and forced into sex services ---
http://www.siconversations.org/shows/detail1198.html

Dear Soldiers, Sailors, Airmen, Marines, National
Guard, Reservists, in Iraq , in the Middle East theater, in Afghanistan , in the
area near Afghanistan , in any base anywhere in the world, and your families:
Let me tell you about why you guys own about 90 percent of the backbone in the
whole world right now and should be happy with yourselves and proud of whom you
are. Ben Stein ---
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ben_Stein

“It would come through the small-business community
like a tsunami,” he said in an interview. “For a substantial number of small
businesses and many of our established businesses, the tax would be higher than
the profit. That is the real problem with it.” “We all want health care,” Mr.
Jackson continued. “But business closure is not good health.” Susan Saulny, "Tax to Pay for Health
Plan in Illinois Faces Resistance," The New York Times, May 5, 2007 ---
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/05/05/us/05illinois.html?_r=1&oref=slogin

Euro MPs are demanding new laws to stop cows and
sheep PARPING (i.e., burping and farting).
Their call came after the UN said livestock emissions
were a bigger threat to the planet than transport. The MEPs have asked the
European Commission to “look again at the livestock question in direct
connection with global warming”. The official EU declaration demands changes to
animals’ diets, to capture gas emissions and recycle manure.The Sun, April 29, 2007 ---
http://www.thesun.co.uk/article/0,,2-2007190671,00.htmlJensen Comment
Research may show that all that's needed is a tube connecting the animal's air
intake to its mouth and butt. If it works for cows, I recommend that we also
apply it to the other great parpers of the world --- lawyers and politicians.

Howard Dean, head of the Democratic National
Committee, once again is proving he has unusual views on the media. He says
groups that want to hear candidates talk openly (i.e. not PARPING) should bar the media. "If you
want to hear the truth from them, you have to exclude the press," is how he
bluntly put it. On one level, that's not so controversial an idea. Today's
"gotcha" journalism certainly makes candidates cautious and fearful that any
stray remark will be blown out of proportion by someone in search of a headline
. . . The Democratic Party's chairman has long expressed a position that federal
regulation of the media -- in the form of a new Fairness Doctrine or the breakup
of entities such as Fox News -- wouldn't be a bad idea. In 2003, while a
presidential candidate, he railed, "Media corporations have too much power...
The media has clearly abused their privilege, and it is hurting our democracy."Political Diary, April 27, 2007 ---
http://www.opinionjournal.com/politicaldiary/ \

The U.S. economy is getting stronger, and the war in
Iraq is getting more unpopular. Normally that spells trouble for military
recruiters. But for nearly two years, the Army has managed to meet or exceed its
recruiting and retention goals. Guy Raz, "Against the Odds, Army
Meets Recruiting Goals," NPR, May 1, 2007 ---
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=9937581

Testifying under oath recently, Secretary of State
Condoleezza Rice misled Congress in her strong defense of Al-Hurra, the taxpayer
financed Arab TV network. It was unwitting, though. She herself was misled.
Joel Mowbrey, "Mad TV: U.S.
taxpayers subsidize terrorist propaganda and Holocaust denial in the Arab
world," The Wall Street Journal, May 1, 2007 ---
http://www.opinionjournal.com/editorial/feature.html?id=110010011

How much money does it take to screw in a compact
fluorescent light bulb? About US$4.28 for the bulb and labour -- unless you
break the bulb. Then you, like Brandy Bridges of Ellsworth, Maine, could be
looking at a cost of about US$2,004.28, which doesn't include the costs of
frayed nerves and risks to health. Sound crazy? Perhaps no more than the
stampede to ban the incandescent light bulb in favour of compact fluorescent
light bulbs (CFLs). Steven Malloy, "The CFL mercury
nightmare," Financial Post, April 28, 2007 --- Click
Here

Flush with petrodollars, and amid disarray in the
Western camp, Russia's hopes of restoring its lost empire are rising. Vladimir
Putin's annual address to both houses of the parliament, delivered last week,
was just the latest signal. The Russian president declared that his country's
obligations under the Conventional Forces in Europe (CFE) Treaty would be
suspended as long as the U.S. planned to install a missile defense shield in
Poland and the Czech Republic. Mr. Putin threatened Russia would abandon the
treaty if NATO countries failed to address his grievances. The defense shield,
he claimed, was a threat to national security.
Mart Lar, "Imperially Deluded," The Wall Street Journal, May 3, 2007 ---
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB117814574418090052.html?mod=opinion&ojcontent=otep

The book "Freakonomics" estimates that 50 percent of
people lie on their resumes. Marilee Jones is one of them, and it cost her a
high-profile job at MIT. "Another Worker Pays the Price for Fabricating Resume," PhysOrg,
April 28, 2007 ---
http://physorg.com/news96987628.html

There was the (high school) girl who, during summer vacation, left her house before 7
each morning to make a two-hour train ride to a major university, where she
worked all day doing cutting-edge research for NASA on weightlessness in mice.
When I was in high school, my 10th-grade science project was on plant tropism —
a shoebox with soil and bean sprouts bending toward the light. These kids who
don’t get into Harvard spend summers on schooners in Chesapeake Bay studying
marine biology, building homes for the poor in Central America, touring Europe
with all-star orchestras. Summers, I dug trenches for my local sewer department
during the day, and sold hot dogs at Fenway Park at night. Michael Winerip (Harvard alum who
now interviews occasional Harvard applicants), "Young, Gifted, and Not Getting
Into Harvard," The New York Times, April 29, 2007 ---
Click HereJensen CommentThe
above quotation caught my eye since when I was in high school (in the 1950s) I
worked on a farm (mostly mucking up after cows, horses, and hogs), washed cars
for the local Chrysler dealer, detassled corn for Pioneer Seed Corn Company, and
cut meat in a local grocery store. My high school physics project consisted of
four small lights that I could switch on and off to illustrate binary coding for
computers. How times and pressures have changed for college applicants in modern
times

A few weeks ago, the Phoenix City Council agreed to
give Thomas J. Klutznick Co. $100 million for building a high-end shopping
center. Backers of the deal say failure to subsidize retail would send
developers to other cities or to Arizona’s Indian reservations. With a total
sales tax of 8.1 percent, Phoenix has the highest sales tax rate of competitor
cities. It may very well be true that Phoenix is losing business to neighboring
cities. Poor tax policy has that effect. If taxes are stifling new business, the
city should lower rates across the board. But tax deals for select... Darcy Olsen, "The Millionaire’s Club
Sweetheart deals between cities and private companies violate constitution,"
Goldwater Institute, May 1, 2007 ---
http://www.goldwaterinstitute.org/aboutus/articleview.aspx?id=1551

Nationwide, home values crept up by barely 1% last
year, but property-tax collections rose by 7%. The spread can be expected to
continue to widen; home sales fell by 8% in March, the largest decline in 18
years. Even Connecticut has noticed. Republican Governor M. Jodi Rell, who is
trying to raise income taxes and has been rated as one of the Governors least
friendly to taxpayers, recently warned the Legislature "there is going to be a
property-tax revolt in this state if real action is not taken." She's seeking a
3% per year cap on annual increases, this for a state that ranks third highest
in per-capita property taxes. A new report from the Tax Foundation finds that
while federal taxes have moderated, state and local taxes are now at an all-time
high as a share of income. Florida could be the next state to act. The
Legislature's current session has been dominated by debate over how to cap or
reduce property taxes, and every politician in sight seems to have a plan. One
proposal would roll back property taxes an enormous $6 billion and cut
assessments as much as 40% in cities such as Miami where spending is out of
control. "Homeowners Rebellion," The Wall Street Journal, May 1,
2007; Page A20 ---
Click Here

Afghanistan had nothing to do with September 11.Rosie O'Donnel, on The View
television show, as reported by Justin McCarthy, "Rosie Makes Up Facts and
Smears Volunteer Soldiers, News Busters, May 1, 2007 ---
http://newsbusters.org/node/12441
Jensen Comment
This is tantamount to denying al-Queda that had anything to do with 9/11
terrorism since Afghanistan was openly Bin Laden's headquarters at the time.
Rosie declares that its a fact President Bush killed over 3,000 Americans that
day. What's sad is that media executives give air time to a nut like this.

Campaign Reform Hypocrisy: 527 WaysThe Democratic majority in Congress has pursued a
reform agenda that so far has overlooked the campaign-finance loophole allowing
soft money to flood so-called 527 organizations, loosely regulated political
groups, most of which support liberal candidates. Top Democrats including Senate
Majority Leader Harry Reid of Nevada and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi of
California once denounced soft money's influence on American politics, but they
have backed off since taking over Congress this year. Since the 2002 Bipartisan
Campaign Finance Reform Act prohibited national political parties from accepting
or spending soft money unregulated dollars not given directly to candidates the
527 groups... S.A. Miller, "Favored by 527s,
Democrats mum on reforms," The Washington Times, May 1, 2007 ---
http://www.washingtontimes.com/national/20070429-113415-2565r.htm

Missouri State University agreed to pay $185,000 to
Michael Hendrix, who agreed to give up his job as a professor after it became
known that he had been convicted of raping a child 25 years ago, The Springfield News-Leaderreported.
Inside Higher Ed, May 2, 2007 ---
http://www.insidehighered.com/news/2007/05/02/qt
Jensen Comment
How long does it take to be forgiven? Forever and a day?

It's like
a Thomas Hardy tragedy, because she did so much good, but something she did long
ago came back and trumped it.Leslie C. Perlman of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, on
Marilee Dean, the schools dean of admissions. Dean served the position for 10
yers before stepping down last week after it was revealed that she fabricated
her academic credentials.

Jacques-Alain Miller has delivered unto us his
thoughts on Google. In case the name does not signify, Jacques-Alain Miller is
the son-in-law of the late Jacques Lacan and editor of his posthumously
published works. He is not a Google enthusiast. The search engines follows “a
totalitarian maxim,” he says. It is the new Big Brother. “It puts everything in
its place,” Miller declares, “turning you into the sum of your clicks until the
end of time.” Scott McLemee, "Digital Masonry,"
Inside Higher Ed, May 2, 2007 ---
http://www.insidehighered.com/views/2007/05/02/mclemee
Jensen Comment
I wonder if the same can be said (e.g., the clicks of a heel) of the Subject
Index of an old-fashioned card catalog in a library? There's a bit of arrogance
at work here that says finding knowledge should be the monopoly of specialists
who develop their own index filing systems over years of personalized detection.
Knowledge discovery that comes easy should be banned under Miller's reasoning.
Banning Google seems to be more of a Big Brother-type of book (database)
burning.

Engineers at Washington University in St. Louis have
developed a unique photocatalytic cell that splits water to produce hydrogen and
oxygen in water using sunlight and the power of a nanostructured catalyst.
PhysOrg, May 1, 2007 ---
http://physorg.com/news97255464.html
Jensen Comment
General Motors recently bet the farm on hydrogen cars. Maybe this will bring
hope to what otherwise is GM's fantasy.Much depends on the volume of hydrogen
that can be cheaply produced.

The extermination of Jews is Allah’s will and is for
the benefit of all humanity, according to an article in the Hamas paper, Al-Risalah.
The author of the article, Kan'an Ubayd, explains that the suicide operations
carried out by Hamas are being committed solely to fulfill Allah’s wishes.
Furthermore, Allah demanded this action, because “the extermination of the Jews
is good for the inhabitants of the worlds.” The killing of innocent Jews by
terrorist attacks is portrayed as Allah’s plan for the benefit of humanity.
Hamas ---
http://pmw.org.il/bulletins_apr2007.htm#b030507

Equality of men and women is stupidity. What men can
do, women cannot do. Women are weak physically and mentally compared to men. Men
have to take care of women.Qazi Ahmed and the Jamat ---
Click Here

Britain teems with nests of serpents and scorpions
of extremism who come from around the world: Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Tunisia,
Morocco, Algeria, Syria, Pakistan and other countries due to its flexible
systems and the adoption of a policy to receive outcasts during the aftermath of
World War II and the Soviet-Western conflict during which doors were opened to
persecuted refugees who sought their rights."Britain: On the Brink of A Terrorist War," Aswarq Alawsat,
April 7, 2007 ---
http://www.asharqalawsat.com/english/news.asp?section=2&id=8854

In this case the only salvation remaining was war…
If the Jew with the help of his Marxist creed is victorious over the peoples of
this world, then his crown will be the funeral wreath of humanity… Thus I
believe today that I am acting according to the will of the almighty Creator:
when I defend myself against the Jew, I am fighting for the work of the Lord.
Adolph Hitler, Mein Kampf ---
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mein_Kampf

We must remember that there are many men who,
without being productive, are anxious to say something important, and the
results are most curious.Goethe as quoted in the bottom of an
email message from Jagdish Gangolly

-Mrs. Clinton, John Edwards, Barack Obama and John
McCain all said books. Rudy Giuliani said "books and music."

-Chris Dodd said "coffee with cream and sugar."

-Sam Brownback said a tarp.

-Mike Huckabee said a "laptop with satellite
reception."

-Tom Tancredo said a boat.

-Bill Richardson said "BlackBerry and a Davidoff
cigar."

Jensen Comments
Spouses somehow bring
Donner Pass
to mind.
Books and music --- not very practical for survival.
Coffee with cream and sugar is not a bad idea if it's a year supply. Probably
better to order bottled water, dried fruit, canned food, and a can opener
(remember the economist versus the mathematician versus the cleric).
A tarp is less useful in a desert climate, but a rubber raft and a water
dehydrator would be more practical.
Now the laptop with satellite reception is a good idea but not much help if
you've no clue as to where you're located.
A Blackberry without a nearby service provider is not as wise as black berries.
Nobody mentioned a fishing pole with bait.
Now me, I'd wish for a genie in a bottle that would grant at least three wishes
with no strings attached.
If there's no genie, them maybe
Deborah Palfrey and a few of her friends.

Question
How did they overlook Bob Jensen as one of the most influential people in the
world?Who is the
accounting/finance professor on the list and where’s in from?

University of Iowa finance professor Erik Lie has
been named one of the world's most influential people by Time magazine....In the
overall list, Lie is included with other notables that include Oprah Winfrey,
George Clooney, Roger Federer, Tony Dungy, Nancy Pelosi, Hillary Clinton, John
Roberts, Pope Benedict XVI, Al Gore, Elizabeth Edwards, Condolezza Rice and
Chien-ming Wang. Lie was named to the list for his work in uncovering the stock
options backdating scandal currently roiling corporate America.
Iowa City Press Citizen, May 3, 2007 ---
Click Here

From ABC News: The Great Ethanol FraudThere was a great piece on 20/20 last night about the
ethanol fraud, read it here: http://abcnews.go.com
For example: But if ethanol made so much sense, we wouldn't have to subsidize it
or mandate its consumption. Jerry Taylor of the Cato Institute said, "If you can
make a profit in this economy by putting something on the market, the government
doesn't need to put a gun to your head."
John Stossel and Andrew G. Sullivan, "Sacrificing Our Children to the 'Corn
God': Ethanol May Not Be the Miracle It's Made Out to Be," ABC News,
May 2, 2997 ---
http://abcnews.go.com/2020/story?id=3130684&page=1

The European Science Foundation (ESF),
France, has published a report which reveals some concern on the
shortcomings of peer review and outlines some possible measures
to cope with them. The report, ‘Peer
review: its present and future states’,
draws on ideas from an international conference held in Prague
in October 2006.

Scientists are
questioning whether peer review, the internationally accepted
form of scientific critique, is able to meet the challenges
posed by the rapid changes in the research landscape. The ESF
report showcases a number of options that could lead to greater
openness in innovative research. A central theme of the report
is that the current peer review system might not adequately
assess the most pioneering research proposals, as they may be
viewed as too risky. The conference called for new approaches,
enabling the assessment of innovative research to be embedded in
the peer review system. Participants agreed that the increasing
importance of competitive research funding has also added on the
pressure on referees and on research funding agencies.

All contributors to the conference
report agreed that peer review is an essential part of research
and that no other credible mechanism exists to replace it.

The FDA today
strongly cautioned
consumers about
purchasing drugs
from 24 web sites
that may be involved
in the distribution
of counterfeit
drugs.

The FDA links two of
the 24 web sites to
counterfeit versions
of the weight loss
drug Xenical.

The FDA says that
Xenical's maker, the
drug company Roche,
tested three phony
Xenical pills
obtained from
brandpills.com and
pillspharm.com.

One phony Xenical
pill contained the
active ingredient in
another weight loss
drug. The two other
fake Xenical pills
contained only talc
and starch,
according to the
FDA.

The FDA has
previously linked
four of the 24 web
sites to counterfeit
versions of the flu
drug Tamiflu and
counterfeit versions
of the erectile
dysfunction drug
Cialis.

Overseas Web Sites

The web sites, which
the FDA says appear
to be operated
outside the U.S.,
are:

AllPills.net

Pharmacy-4U.net

DirectMedsMall.com

Brandpills.com

Emediline.com

RX-ed.com

RXePharm.com

Pharmacea.org

PillsPharm.com

MensHealthDrugs.net

BigXplus.net

MediClub.md

InterTab.de

Pillenpharm.com

Bigger-X.com

PillsLand.com

EZMEDZ.com

UnitedMedicals.com

Best-Medz.com

USAPillsrx.net

USAMedz.com

BluePills-Rx.com

Genericpharmacy.us

I-Kusuri.jp

The 24 web sites
appear on
pharmacycall365.com
under the "Our
Websites" heading,
the FDA notes.

FDA's Advice to
Consumers

The FDA says
consumers using
online pharmacies
should be wary if
there is no way to
contact a web site
pharmacy by phone,
if prices are
dramatically lower
than the
competition, or if
no prescription from
your doctor is
required.

The FDA's web site
includes these
safety tips for
people buying
prescription drugs
online:

Make sure the
web site
requires a
prescription.

Make sure the
web site has a
pharmacist
available for
questions.

Buy only from
licensed
pharmacies
located in the
U.S.

Don't provide
personal
information such
as credit card
numbers unless
you're sure the
web site will
protect that
information.

The FDA urges
consumers to visit
www.fda.gov/buyonline
for more information
before buying
prescription drugs
over the Internet.

Accounting Controls in the State of Colorado Have at Least Ten Million LeaksThe amount Department of Revenue supervisor
Michelle Cawthra allegedly stole from state coffers is now up to $10 million,
double the initial estimate, lawmakers learned Friday. Cawthra's supervisor,
Janet Swaney, was placed on administrative leave Friday as the investigation
continued into how such a large amount could have been diverted without anyone
noticing.
"Missing state money now put at $10 million: Revenue chief testifies; boss
of suspect on leave," Rocky Mountain News, May 5, 2007 ---
Click Here

Global Business Traveler Knowledge Center on BusinessWeek.comThe Global Business Traveler Knowledge Center on
BusinessWeek.com offers practical and business-related travel information on
global destinations. From getting the and where to stay, to getting around and
business etiquette, it holds all the useful tips and links you need for you next
business trip ---
http://knowledgecenter.businessweek.com/business_travel/

Question
Do our mathematics skills peak at age seven?

A mathematical problem that just doesn't add up Most of us share it and it seems a safe
enough assumption: mathematical skills and performance develop
and advance as students progress through their elementary school
years. However, a new study by University of Notre Dame
psychologist Nicole M. McNeil suggests that for at least one
type of math problem, 7-year-old students are outperforming
9-year-olds. PhysOrg, May 5, 2007 ---
http://physorg.com/news97508859.html

"Duke MBAs Fail Ethics: Test Thirty-four Fuqua School of
Business students are accused of violating the school's honor
code by cheating on an exam," by Alison Damast,
Business Week, April 30, 2007 ---
Click Here

Cheating on the Rise

Business-school leaders have reason
to be concerned. Fifty-six percent of graduate business
students admitted to cheating one or more times in the past
academic year, compared to 47% of nonbusiness students,
according to a study published in September in the journal
of the Academy of Management Learning & Education
(see BusinessWeek.com, 10/24/06,
"A Crooked Path Through B-School").
Donald McCabe, the lead author of the
study and a professor of management and global business at
Rutgers Business School, says the
large number of students implicated in the Duke case is
above average. "It's certainly not the biggest, but it's one
of the bigger ones," he says of academic scandals involving
all kinds of students.

One of the larger cases in the past
five years was a cheating scandal in a physics class at the
University of Virginia in 2002. The school eventually
dismissed 45 students and revoked three graduates' degrees.
In 2005, Harvard Business School rejected 119 applicants
accused of hacking the school's admissions Web site (see
BusinessWeek.com, 3/9/05,
"An Ethics Lesson for MBA Wannabes").

The Duke occurrence came to light
in mid-March, when the professor for the class noticed some
unusual consistencies among students' answers on the final
exam and as well as on assignments given during the course.

Stiff Penalties

The students were brought before
the school's Judicial Board and are facing a range of wide
range of punitive measures, including expulsion. The board
is made up of three faculty members, three students, and one
nonvoting faculty chair who only votes in case of a tie.

Thirty-eight students were
initially investigated, only four of whom were found not
guilty of violating the honor code. (Of the 38 students, 37
were accused of cheating and one of lying.) Of the remaining
34 students, 9 will be expelled, 15 will be suspended for
one year and receive an F in the class, and the remaining 9
will receive an F in the course. The penalties for the
students will not go into effect until June 1, after which
students will have 15 days to file an appeal. The school did
not release the names of the students involved or name the
professor.

Gavan Fitzsimons, a
professor who is chair of the Fuqua Honor
Committee, said in a written summary of the
board hearings that the board spent several
weeks "deliberating at length" the
circumstances of the case. "It is my utmost
hope that all of the individuals found
guilty of violating our Honor Code will
learn how precious a gift honor and
integrity is," he wrote. "I know from my
interactions with many of them that they
will forever be changed by this experience."

Academic Pressures

The faculty and
student body at Duke were informed of the
committee's decision on the afternoon of
Apr. 27, and the news spread throughout the
campus and on Internet chat groups. Charles
Scrase, Fuqua's student body president, was
surprised by the charges: "The classmates I
work with on a day-to-day basis are ethical,
outstanding individuals," he says. "We're
shocked that [cheating] could've occurred to
this degree."

Sonit Handa, a
first-year Fuqua student, suggests the
students involved in this case might have
been tempted to cheat because they wanted to
ensure they did well in the class: "Duke is
a hectic MBA business school, and employers
want good grades, so there's a lot of
pressure to do well."

The pressure, of
course, is not confined to Duke. Many
schools have policies that encourage an open
dialogue on business ethics. Students at the
Thunderbird School of Global Managementsign a Professional
Oath of Honor similar to doctors'
Hippocratic Oath, while
Penn State created
an honor committee of students and faculty
last year to help foster academic integrity
on campus.

Codes Not
Foolproof

One of the more
recent examples is the new graduate honor
court at the University of North Carolina's
Kenan-Flagler Business School.
In January, the
business school established a student-run
honor court, a body devoted to investigating
student violations of the honor code.
Between 30 and 40 students, from the
school's five MBA programs, are involved
with the court, according to Dawn Morrow, a
second-year MBA student who serves as the
student attorney general for the court.

Before this,
student honor code violations were dealt
with through the graduate honor court
system, which handled cases from other
graduate programs. Morrow says that students
have been eager to get involved with the
honor court because they want to ensure that
the school's values are upheld inside and
outside the classroom. Rutgers' McCabe
estimates that 50 to 100 colleges and
universities have honor codes.

Schools with
extensive honor codes, such as Duke, tend to
have less cheating in general, McCabe says.
Still, he says, it's not a foolproof
measure. Business-school students are more
competitive than other students, and some
use cheating as a way to ensure they get
ahead: "It's kind of like a businessperson
who has the opportunity to embezzle money in
the dark of night," says McCabe. "Sure it's
more tempting, but we still expect them to
be honest."

Jensen Comment
There are two broad types of student honor codes. The toughest one is where each
student signs an oath to report the cheating of any other student. This is a
rough code that, in my opinion, must be backed by a college commitment to back
the whistle blowing student if litigation ensues in the very litigious society
of the United States (where 80% of the world's lawyers reside.)

The second kind is a softer version where students are not honor bound to
report cheating by run their own honor courts to dole out punishment
recommendations for cheating reported by others, usually their instructors. This
may actually result in harsher punishments than instructors would normally dole
out. For example, professors often think an F grade is sufficient punishment.
Honor courts may recommend more severe punishments such as in the Duke scandal
noted above.

One problem with honor courts is that they are more of a hassle for
instructors having to take the time to report details of the infraction to the
court and then appear before the court as witnesses. An even more controversial
problem is that the inherent right of an instructor to assign a course grade
punishment for cheating is taken out of the hands of the instructor and passed
on to the honor court. Instructors generally do not like to lose their authority
and responsibility for assigning grades.

Question
What should you ban when students are taking examinations? Baseball caps? iPods?

Banning baseball caps during tests was obvious -
students were writing the answers under the brim. Then, schools started banning
cell phones, realizing students could text message the answers. Nick d'Ambrosia,
17, holds up his iPod inside a classroom at Mountain View High School in
Meridian, Idaho Friday, April 13, 2007. In Idaho, Mountain View High School
recently enacted a ban on iPods, Zunes and other digital media players. Some
students were downloading formulas and other cheats onto the players, although
none were ever caught.
Rebecca Boone, PhysOrg, April 27, 2007 ---
http://physorg.com/news96865353.html

Well, as I've said before, you can drive yourself,
and also the majority of your students, who are honest, crazy with trying to
prevent cheating. One solution I came up with eliminates the reason for many
of the cheating options (save texting questions and answers back and forth):
I allow one sheet of notes, 8-1/2 x 11, double sided, handwritten, at my
exams. They can write anything they want on it - formulas, definitions,
problems, prayers. Many students actually find it a good study tool - by the
time they condense 4 or 5 chapters onto one sheet of paper and write it up
neatly so they can read it, they've learned the material pretty well. Of
course, there are always those I notice scribbling frantically in the
auditorium 5 minutes before the test. Some people never learn.

Say what?
Why bother entering into contracts that are not enforceable?
Do unenforceable contracts create emerging problems in accounting theory and in
practice?"The Best Way to Construct Unenforceable Contracts," by Erica Plambeck,
Stanford Graduate School of Business Newsletter, April 2007 ---
http://www.gsb.stanford.edu/news/research/mfg_plambeck_contracts.shtml

Strong relationships are frequently more important
than legally binding contracts when companies outsource key operational
activities.

Researchers say that as more firms form
international relationships—particularly in innovation-intensive industries
such as biopharmaceuticals or high tech—ironclad legal agreements can be
impractical, if not impossible. Overburdened court systems around the world
and the growing complexity of the types of collaborative deals being forged
mean that increasingly firms rely on the threat of loss of future business
rather than the court system to enforce those deals.

“When an innovative product is under development
and a supplier must invest in capacity up front, it can be difficult—if not
impossible—to write a court-enforceable contract that specifies exactly what
will be delivered,” says Erica Plambeck, associate professor of operations,
information, and technology at the Stanford Graduate School of Business.

For example, she says, electronics giant Toshiba is
continually making design changes, frequently substantial ones, throughout
the development process. If Toshiba’s suppliers delayed making capacity
investment for manufacturing a new product until the design was finalized
and a court-enforceable procurement contract could be negotiated, Toshiba
would miss the small windows of opportunity that the consumer electronics
market allows for releasing state-of-the-art products. Therefore, Toshiba
needs suppliers to build capacity early, without a contract. In a one-off
transaction, a supplier would be likely to build far too little capacity,
anticipating that Toshiba would attempt to negotiate a low price for
production once the capacity investment was made. But within the context of
an ongoing, cooperative relationship, Toshiba could offer more generous
compensation, and convince the supplier to expand its capacity—and both
firms’ profits—even without a contract.

Alternatively, she says, there are cases where
assurances about the quality or quantity of output cannot be legally
enforceable. “Frequently, producing a viable product depends on the
collaborative efforts of both parties, and it’s difficult to determine fault
if something goes wrong,” she says. A case in point: A biopharmaceutical
firm could hand over genetically modified cells and the liquid medium in
which to multiply them to a supplier, who then would be responsible for
managing that fermentation process to produce a therapeutic protein. If the
protein yield is unexpectedly low, a court would have difficulty determining
whether the cells and medium were of poor quality or the supplier made
mistakes in managing the fermentation process.

“This kind of complicated business arrangement can
be difficult to specify in a contract in a manner that a court could
enforce,” says Plambeck. “Under such conditions, an ongoing relationship
between partners is critical to cooperation.”

Plambeck has written a series of papers on
so-called relational contracts—agreements enforced by the value of the
ongoing cooperative relationship—research she has conducted with Terry
Taylor, an associate professor in the business school at Columbia
University. Plambeck became interested in relational contracts after
realizing that there was an almost universal assumption in the operations
and supply chain management literature that all contracts were
court-enforced.

“By recognizing that the strength of incentives for
investment in design, capacity, and inventory are limited by the value of
the future business, one obtains qualitatively different managerial insights
and policies for operations and supply chain management,” she says. There is
a rich body of economics research in this area—indeed, it was a Stanford
economics professor, Robert Gibbons (now at MIT) who coined the phrase
“relational contracts.” Plambeck and Taylor build on this existing work by
taking the abstract idea of relational contracts and applying it to dynamic
problems of collaborative product development, capacity, production, and
inventory management.

Question
For affirmative action college admissions, will any black student do?

A study released this year put numbers on the trend.
Among students at 28 top U.S. universities, the representation of black students
of first- and second-generation immigrant origin (27 percent) was about twice
their representation in the national population of blacks their age (13
percent). Within the Ivy League, immigrant-origin students made up 41 percent of
black freshmen. Wilcher would like to know why. She asks if her cause has lost
its way on U.S. campuses, with the goal of correcting American racial injustices
replaced by a softer ideal of diversity--as if any black student will do.
Cara Anna, "Among black students, many immigrants," Yahoo News, April 30,
2007 ---
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20070430/ap_on_re_us/colleges_black_students_4

400 Students Pay for an A: Sure beats having to work for oneAuthorities at the institution, Diablo Valley College
in Pleasant Hill, about 40 miles east of here, said in a statement issued late
Thursday that at least 74 students might have paid someone to change lower
grades to higher ones. The college authorities said as many as 400 grades
recorded on computer transcripts might have been altered in a five-year period.
The interim president at Diablo Valley College, Diane Scott-Summers, said the
administration had transferred all records, the names of students who might be
involved and other materials to the Contra Costa County district attorney’s
office, which is investigating.
Carolyn Marshall, "Students May Have Paid Cash to Change Grades, College Says,"
The New York Times, May 5, 2007 ---
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/05/05/us/05grades.html

E. Howard Hunt, a CIA covert agent and Foreign
Station Chief, was the Leader of the White House "plumbers" team, who's
burglary eventually brought about the resignation of then President Richard
Nixon. E. Howard Hunt, who passed away at the age of 88, was involved in
many of the CIA's most notorious operations in Cuba and Central & South
America. Hunt is considered by some investigators to be one of the "tramps"
detained, photographed and released without arrest or charges near the
grassy knoll at Dealey Plaza. All sources agree that Hunt could have had
knowledge of the players, and motives in the most mysterious assassination
in US history. Many life-long students of this event are having a hard time
ignoring this new evidence.

. . .

Fast forward to the present, now the eldest son of
E. Howard Hunt, Saint John Hunt, has come forward with his father's deathbed
confession tapes, revealing that Lyndon Johnson, Kennedy's Vice President,
and thereby the man with the most to gain, orchestrated a larger conspiracy
to eliminate JFK. First Lady Jackie Kennedy always suspected LBJ, from the
day of her husband's death. Late in the day of November 22nd, she stood by
at LBJ's swearing in as President, still wearing the pink dress stained with
the President's blood. When asked by reporters why she did not change, she
replied, "I want them to see what they have done to my husband." A mistress
of LBJ did publically admit that the former president had confided to her
his role in the crime, but her admission has been discounted for years. A
best-selling biography of LBJ in the 1990s seemed to point in this direction
as well. Other criminals, with connections to the French underworld, have
admitted to being part of other shooting teams at Dealey Plaza. A trial in
the 1960s, led by the District
Attorneyin
New Orleans(Garrison), centered on elements of
the mafia working with the CIA as part of the conspiracy, but was unable to
obtain any convictions.

Continued in article

Should a professor get fired for selling his own textbook to his own
students or other students in his college?The director of Florida International University’s
online education arm stepped down this week amid an investigation into charges
that he arranged for students to buy their electronic textbooks from a company
that he and a former colleague reportedly owned.
Andy Guess, "An Online Course in Ethics," Inside Higher Ed, May 4, 2007
---
http://www.insidehighered.com/news/2007/05/04/fiu
Jensen Comment
I think much involves prior disclosure and ethical distribution of the profits
(if any). Years ago authors of textbooks widely adopted their own textbooks and
pocketed the royalties from publishing companies. A few authors returned the
royalties from their students back to their academic departments, although in a
way they were distributing student money to the university.

A few decades back several accounting professors purchased a publishing
company and sold their company's books to their own students at least two large
and prestigious universities in Texas. They apparently got away with it and
never hid the fact that they owned the company.

Can some of you out there flesh in some details here about college
policies in this regard?
As a matter of fact, in the past publishing companies often sought out coauthors
with the main purpose of capturing a huge market in universities that employed
those coauthors. In some instances I think the contribution of a coauthor was
more in persuading a textbook adoption (e.g., for over 2,000 introductory
accounting students) than in writing parts of the textbook.

A few large
universities adopted policies restricting adoptions of employee textbooks. Some
of you out there might be able to flesh in some details about this.

From what I have seen (and I have not written a
full textbook myself), writing a textbook requires an enormous commitment of
time and effort - it is virtually a full time job in itself. And no sooner
is the book off the press, than the revisions and updates begin. Why is it
unethical for someone to be compensated for that effort? I could see that if
the adoption were over the objections of other faculty teaching the course,
brooked no competition, done secretly. But if it is open and above-boards,
don't the students benefit from being taught by the person who wrote the
script? Just my $.02.

This case doesn't seem to be about a professor
requiring his own text, but rather about the professor owing the bookstore
to which students were directed. This is more reminiscent of the flap some
years ago about doctors owning pharmacies.

A textbook is above board, in that you can see who
the author is. In this case, one of the issues seemed to be that the
ownership of the bookstore was not disclosed.

James Cain, a terminally ill Florida veteran, got
his first Social Security disability payment last month. Before he could
withdraw any of it to pay for his medicine or mortgage, his bank took it out
of his account.

His wife's Social Security check went in the same
day. The bank took most of that, too. It withdrew the money to make payments
to itself on a car loan the bank had made to the Cains.

Federal law says Social Security can't be taken to
repay debts. So how can banks do it?

They don't use the technique of debt collectors,
which is to file garnishment orders on bank accounts -- orders that succeed
because by and large no one is enforcing the exemption (see adjoining
article).

Banks have a different rationale. They say the
federal ban on taking Social Security benefits to repay debts doesn't apply
to them. The reason: They aren't really collecting debts.

Auto Loan at the Bank

They cite the doctrine of "set-off," which says
banks can collect money that customers owe them by taking it out of
customers' accounts. All agree this traditional practice makes sense for
routine fees like monthly account charges. But banks apply it broadly, to
other money customers owe them. Banks argue that when they take cash out of
a customer's account -- including cash from a Social Security check -- they
aren't really collecting a debt, just "setting off" what's owed them.

The Cains, of Palm Coast, Fla., took out a $31,000
loan from a SunTrust bank to buy a Ford Expedition in 2005. But last summer,
Mr. Cain was diagnosed with bladder cancer and soon was unable to work. His
wife, Elna, tried to find someone to take over the $690 monthly payments but
couldn't, so she surrendered the SUV to the bank this January. After selling
it at auction for $16,000, the bank told the Cains they owed it a balance of
$15,703, which included late charges, repossession expenses and interest.

Mrs. Cain, 63, says she told the bank her husband's
cancer had spread and he was confined to a wheelchair. They lost their
health coverage when he had to quit working. A Vietnam vet, Mr. Cain has
applied for veteran's benefits, but isn't yet receiving them.

He also applied for Social Security disability. On
March 14, both his first disability check, $1,343, and Mrs. Cain's $1,161
regular Social Security hit their SunTrust account through direct deposit.

The same day, SunTrust took $1,924 out of their
account. The next week, the Cains got a letter from SunTrust Recovery
Department, dated March 15, thanking them for their payment.

Exempt Funds

Besides Social Security, the Cains' account
received money from Mrs. Cain's pension from the American Red Cross. In
Florida, that is also exempt from collection to repay a debt.

The Cains contend they had never given SunTrust
permission to debit their account. SunTrust Banks Inc. pointed to its
deposit agreements, which say that the bank can use money in customers'
accounts to offset debts to the bank.

Asked whether the bank believes its set-off right
makes it legal to seize exempt funds such as Social Security, the bank said
in a statement: "We cannot publicly disclose the specifics of individual
client relationships. However, in cases when we offset accounts for
delinquent loans, we as a matter of policy exclude exempt funds and provide
proper notice to the customer."

Mark Budnitz, a Georgia State College of Law
professor and co-author of "Consumer Banking and Payment Law," said, "It's
an abuse of the right of set-off to use it to take money from Social
Security funds.... Banks are flouting federal policy."

California Lawsuit

A case before the California Supreme Court is
testing the issue. The court has agreed to review a suit alleging that Bank
of America Corp. seeks to profit from Social Security recipients by charging
high fees and taking them from the recipients' accounts.

The suit cites a case where the bank charged a
Santa Cruz man five overdraft fees in one day, totaling $160, based on
debit-card purchases that totaled $11. It took this out of an account funded
by Social Security disability benefit checks for the man, the victim of a
disabling head injury.

The fees are steep because of a newer type of
overdraft protection common with direct-deposit accounts set up to receive
Social Security. Instead of a line of credit, which preferred customers get,
this newer type creates a short-term loan to the account holder every time
he or she writes a check or makes an ATM withdrawal from an account with
insufficient funds.

Each such loan carries a fee, typically $25 to $30,
instead of interest. And instead of giving the customer time to repay, the
bank repays itself out of the account as soon as the customer puts some more
money in it.

But despite improvements on
the original iPod, none has enabled interaction with other players
or wireless Internet connectivity -- two features that competitors
are eager to offer so as to chip away at iPod's huge market share.
Microsoft
Corp.'s Zune music player, for example, was shipped with built-in
Wi-Fi, enabling song sharing -- albeit limited -- with nearby Zunes.

Apple is about to
bring out its own wireless music player in the iPhone, which
combines a full iPod with Wi-Fi and cellphone connectivity.
But so far, it's unclear whether you'll be able to use the
iPhone to download or share music.

This week, I tested
San-Disk's $250 Sansa Connect player, a collaborative effort
from SanDisk
Corp., Yahoo
Inc.'s Yahoo Music and Zing Systems Inc. that comes with
built-in Wi-Fi for more than just limited sharing with other
players. Unlike the iPod, which must be plugged into a
computer to load new music, Sansa Connect can play and
download content on the player whenever a Wi-Fi network is
available, including photos, Internet Radio, songs from
Yahoo's music store or recommendations from friends.

The Sansa Connect
isn't without flaws. Downloading music on the go requires a
subscription plan that costs $144 a year or $15 monthly, so
you never outright own this content. The player also relies
on a Wi-Fi connection for much of its functionality, and you
may not always be within Wi-Fi range. Another problem is
that Yahoo's music store doesn't sell videos and offers
fewer songs than Apple's iTunes: roughly two million versus
five million. Lastly, the Sansa Connect doesn't enable
searching the store for specific music. Instead, you're
limited to Internet radio or play-lists suggested by Yahoo,
a caveat that can be maddening if you want to find a certain
title or artist.

But overall, I really
liked the Sansa Connect. It forced me to look at my portable
player as an evolving, untethered device that introduced me
to lots of songs. When it wasn't connected to Wi-Fi, I was
disappointed to not be downloading new songs. My iPod
suddenly seemed old-fashioned.

The four-gigabyte,
black Sansa Connect isn't as handsome as the iPod, and has a
stubby Wi-Fi antenna protruding from its top edge. It
measures about a half an inch wider than and two and a half
times as thick as the comparably priced iPod Nano, which has
twice as much memory -- eight gigabytes rather than four.
The Sansa Connect has a microSD card slot for expanding its
capacity, but doesn't come with such a card.

The Sansa has a
movable scroll wheel similar to that found on the original
iPod. This wheel aids navigation tremendously, as does its
smart interface. A colorful 2.2-inch display showed seven
menus in a fan formation at the bottom of the screen, and I
flipped through each by turning the wheel. A tiny speaker is
built onto the back of the device, which came in handy more
often than I anticipated.

I cut right to the
chase when I opened my Sansa Connect, testing its Wi-Fi
capabilities by playing an Internet radio station through
the device. The player detected my Wi-Fi network, I entered
my Yahoo username and password and seconds later was
listening to a new Carrie Underwood song on one of 16 pop
stations.

Even without a paid
subscription to Yahoo Music Unlimited To Go, owners of the
Sansa Connect can access about 100 Internet Radio stations;
subscribers get twice as many. Each player comes with a free
30-day subscription.

You can also view
uploaded digital photos without a subscription. The Sansa
Connect links to Yahoo's free photo-sharing site, Flickr.com,
so you can see your images as well as the top 50 photos
Flickr labels as Today's Most Interesting -- but you can't
view friends' albums. These photos looked good on my Sansa
Connect screen, automatically adjusting to fit the screen in
landscape or portrait views depending on the image.

With a subscription,
the Sansa Connect's Wi-Fi connection becomes more useful.
While a song is playing, you can press a button to download
it or the whole album to your player. I tried this with Mat
Kearney's "Nothing Left To Lose," opting first to download
just that song but then deciding to get the entire album.
One by one, the songs downloaded, averaging about 10 seconds
each at best, until they were loaded in the player's My
Music section.

Finding exact songs,
artists or albums using the Sansa Connect is complete hit or
miss. Rather than gaining access to Yahoo's entire store on
your player, you're limited to choosing from general genres
via the Internet Radio section, top songs on Yahoo Music or
Yahoo's recommendations for what you'll like. So if you want
to hear a certain band, you'll have to guess which category
the band falls under in Internet Radio, hope to see one of
its songs and then download as the song plays.

Though this lack of a
search process is frustrating at times, it also might force
you to discover music that you haven't yet heard. This is a
different way of thinking for iPodders, so it may not catch
on as easily as the Sansa player's creators hoped.

But remember: The
Sansa Connect is Wi-Fi capable so it can receive software
updates wirelessly, adding new features to the player at any
time. Its developers say search on the device is something
they're looking at for the future.

Continued in article

Future Lab (in the U.K.):
Developing innovative learning resources and practices that support new
approaches to education for the 21st century.By bringing together the creative, technical and
educational communities, Futurelab is pioneering ways of using new technologies
to transform the learning experience.
FutureLab Innovation in Education ---
http://www.futurelab.org.uk/index.htm

Moral Hazard in Mortgage BrokeringIn the old days, most homeowners obtained mortgages
from their local bank or credit union, which adhered to strict lending rules.
Nowadays, the lion's share of homebuyers' business (70 percent) goes to
independent mortgage brokers — some of whom get bonuses for steering borrowers
to higher-interest loans. Experts say many recent borrowers were put into ARMs
that are likely to cost far more over the life of the loan than if they'd chosen
a fixed-rate option. Often, consumers could have locked in fixed-rate loans at
low interest rates, but lenders downplayed the advantages of these loans.
Chris Arnold, "Mass. Homeowners Rally Against Foreclosures," NPR, April
27, 2007 ---
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=9870466

Subprime Mortgages: A PrimerLawmakers on Capitol Hill are demanding answers
from regulators and lenders about subprime mortgages. Many worry that
rising mortgage defaults and lender failures could hurt America's
overall banking system. Already, the subprime crisis has been blamed for
steep declines in the stock market. But just what is a subprime loan —
and why should you care? Here, a primer:
"Subprime Mortgages: A Primer," NPR, March 23, 2007 ---
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=9085408

How do lenders rate on treats at the University of Texas?
Officials at the University of Texas at Austin — already facing scrutiny over
how they recommended lenders to students — have a new embarrassment to face. The
Daily Texan obtained and published documents showing that the office rated
lenders not just on the quality of services provided to students, but on the
“treats” provided to the aid office — treats like fajita lunches, happy hours,
birthday cakes and more. Inside Higher Ed, May 1, 2007 ---
http://www.insidehighered.com/news/2007/05/01/qt

Each locally-created Green Map is a fresh perspective encouraging discovery,
personal involvement and greener everyday choices through a shared visual
language of Green Map Icons. Project funding can be derived from several
sources, but all Mapmakers pledge that content is not influenced by
sponsors, and that they will do their best to be accurate, fair and
inclusive. Since global transformation takes hold gradually through local
action, Green Maps help address unhealthy conditions, climate change,
species loss and inequity as they celebrate heroic efforts to restore and
conserve the assets of each community

Last year — my first as the president of a liberal
arts college — I attended a gathering of about 40 college and university
presidents along with various experts on higher education where the
challenges of higher education were being discussed. At one point during the
meeting, all other attendees were asked to exit the room, leaving just the
college leaders. The idea was to give us the opportunity to have an honest
and forthright discussion, to offer questions and answers about issues such
as increasing diversity and improving accessibility that we had all agreed
were crucial.

I asked: since we effectively had the
power in that room to transform the world of higher
education, why weren’t we doing it? Much to my
consternation, one of my peers responded that we are
“lacking in both the individual and collective courage to do
so.” This is indeed troubling.

I’ve been struck by the challenges
facing higher education today. And, as someone who has spent
his career in higher education, first as an academic and
then as an administrator, I believe the issues facing higher
ed leaders now are more profound than at any other time in
the last several decades — and are perhaps even
unprecedented.

We face mounting pressure from all
sides to do well in the rankings and increase revenue; but,
as our institutions become significantly more market driven,
we’re in grave danger of losing touch with our core academic
missions. Reports like the one issued by the
Spellings Commissionare
escalating the demands on leaders for new approaches to the
pressing issues facing higher education including
affordability, access, and outcomes assessment. There are
also genuine real-world problems — challenges that impinge
directly on our institutions and missions — from trying to
keep pace with the breathtakingly rapid changes in
technology to facing a global environment rife with
injustice, violence, and a deepening divide between world
cultures and religions.

And what do people hear about us,
the leaders of these institutions? Often, media coverage
characterizes college and university presidents as highly
compensated career opportunists more concerned with our
generous perks and benefits than in tackling the tough
issues facing our institutions today.

It is therefore disconcerting to me
that the traditional model of college leadership does not
appear to be up to the challenge. The new and evolving
demands being placed on our leadership need new and creative
strategies. And we educational leaders must look to each
other for examples of successful experimentation and
innovation as well as for counsel and criticism.

There is cause for optimism. If we
look beyond the overheated rhetoric, we see individual
examples of educational leaders rising to meet these
challenges. Deborah Bial, founder of the
Posse Foundation, for example, is
helping bring about greater social and intellectual
pluralism on American campuses. Lloyd Thacker is working to
restore reason and educational values to calm the admissions
frenzy through the
Education Conservancy.And with
his colleagues, William Bowen has done groundbreaking work
in setting a national agenda for substantive assessment and
reform in the areas of race sensitive admissions, college
athletics, and most recently, socioeconomic status and
educational attainment.

At Lafayette College, we are in the
throes of developing a strategic plan and using a very
inclusive, time-consuming, and at times down-right
frustrating process. The challenge has been to make this
process open and interactive enough to gain the benefit of
valuable individual contributions while creating a vision
that is widely embraced and actively supported.

As we move forward, it seems
increasingly clear to me that presidential leadership must
acknowledge that fundamental tensions exist between what we
feel pressured to do to be successful leaders today (such as
raising funds and worrying about rankings) and what,
ethically, we need to do (improving the quality of the
academic core of the institution, increasing diversity and
accessibility, and producing an engaged and enlightened
citizenry.) As educational leaders, the most important
challenge facing us today is balancing these fundamental
tensions.

As we continue the work on our
strategic plan here at Lafayette, we have been thinking
about how to balance some of these conflicting pressures:

1) The commitment to educational
excellence with the prudent management of costs. But
that’s just the tip of the iceberg. To reach this seemingly
straightforward objective, two fundamental facts have to be
addressed.

First, especially at liberal arts
colleges, our model of education — that of faculty working
closely with individual students — is inherently inefficient
and always will be. There is no substitute for individual
mentoring, teaching in small classes, or interaction between
students and faculty outside of the classroom. But there are
opportunities to do this work more effectively, beginning
with more efficient use of technology and better use of
faculty time. (As a start, we might reduce by half the
number of committees on which our faculty members are
required to serve which would free up several additional
hours per month for each of our professors to work with
students).

Second, it requires college
leadership to understand that a hand-tooled education is,
above all else, what makes a student’s college experience
distinctive — and it is worth the cost. If we acknowledge
these factors, we set priorities more clearly and manage
more effectively.

2) The enduring values of a
liberal education with support for the skills needed in an
increasingly professional marketplace. Students and
their families have begun to question the utility of a
broad, values-based curriculum in this fast-paced,
skills-driven economy. They are concerned, and justifiably
so, about outcomes and their prospects for gainful
employment. However, we need to make clear that, for most of
our students, the real value of time at college is to obtain
a liberal education: to encourage individual growth, the
cultivation of ethics, new capacities for expression, and
most important, the skills and desire to continue learning.

3) Preparing students to
function in a global environment, regardless of where they
are located or the limitations of resources. By
providing them with an educational experience that is
international in reach and presence, they will have a basis
for understanding what it really means to be global
citizens. I see this not so much as a technological or
logistical challenge as a creative one requiring new
thinking about curriculum, allocation of faculty resources,
and campus climate. For example, at no additional cost, a
small number of existing faculty positions might be
redeployed to support a program for visiting international
faculty in various content areas.

4) Strengthening our core
programs by reaffirming our commitment to community and
civic engagement. Our institutions need to show by
example the type of community partners we can and should be.
At Lafayette, service learning has been used to great
educational and community benefit in many of our
departments, including civil engineering, English,
economics, sociology and mathematics. By modeling values and
principles we espouse and encouraging students to join us in
this work, we can help instill greater recognition of the
importance of civic engagement and an educated citizenry. We
serve our educational mission best when we foster our role
as vital and engaged citizens, connected in myriad ways to
our communities and to the world.

5) Embracing technology as a
fundamental component of the educational process not merely
its infrastructure. This too, at bottom, is not a
resource problem — it’s a question of vision. We must
understand that technology is no longer a productivity
enhancer nor a marginal benefit. Rather it is a core element
of our educational system just as it is for our society.
It’s difficult to be a technological leader if we can’t keep
pace with the technological sophistication of our own
students. This was brought home to me recently when a
student complained about a faculty member who was still
using old-fashioned e-mail rather than a hand-held PDA.
Academic and facilities planning must include various
perspectives on how technology contributes to learning
across the disciplines and the campus.

6) Pursuing excellence and an
agenda of pluralism. True diversity — social and
intellectual pluralism — enriches the educational
possibilities by a measure greater than any other means.
Diversity in its broadest sense must be a core value of
higher ed institutions because it provides us with the
optimal access to talent, quality of learning environment,
and service to our social mission. To achieve this, however,
it requires rethinking the admission and financial aid
paradigm, the structure of the curriculum, and the very
nature of the communities we create. Difficult though it is,
initial success in student recruitment is far easier than
the ongoing challenge of maintaining a vibrant community
that is fundamentally diverse.

The challenges are great but the
opportunities to do the right things on the right issues are
greater. If we wish to succeed in the new century — if we
wish to have a transformative impact on higher education in
America and throughout the world — we must accept the
challenge that we can do more for our students and the
broader communities that we serve. The work ahead will
require both individual and collective courage.

Daniel H. Weiss is president of Lafayette College. He
was formerly the James B. Knapp Dean of the Zanvyl
Krieger School of Arts and Sciences at Johns Hopkins
University. An authority on the art of medieval Europe
in the age of the Crusades, Weiss also was a professor
of art history at Johns Hopkins.

‘Dirty Little Secrets’ in Women’s SportsLast month’s resignation of Louisiana State
University’s women’s basketball coach amid allegations of inappropriate sexual
conduct with her players has once again raised an issue that has long dogged
women’s sports: the perceived prevalence of lesbian coaches. Some advocates for
women’s athletics fear that the incident involving Pokey Chatman will have
negative ramifications for female coaches and encourage the use of “negative
recruiting” aimed at some coaches and programs. Yet, more hopefully, they say
the incident is galvanizing discussion around issues of homophobia in women’s
sports that have long been silently suppressed, and has cast light on the double
standard that surrounds player-coach relationships.
Elizabeth Redden, "‘Dirty Little Secrets’ in Women’s Sports," Inside Higher
Ed, April 30, 2007 ---
http://www.insidehighered.com/news/2007/04/30/sports

Report says Internet is an important tool for extremists' recruitingExtremist Islamic groups have come to value the
Internet so much for its ability to spread their message that some have said the
keyboard is as important as a Kalashnikov rifle, a report for Congress says. The
report, to be presented Thursday to the Senate Homeland Security and
Governmental Affairs Committee, says terrorists have increased their use of the
Internet to make their activities faster, cheaper and more secure. Use of the
Internet for communications, propaganda and research has grown to include
recruitment and training, says the report prepared by a panel of experts brought
together by George Washington University's Homeland Security Policy Institute
and the University of Virginia's Critical Incident Analysis Group.
MIT's Technology Review, May 2, 2007 ---
http://www.technologyreview.com/Wire/18653/

While many browsers offer a seamless experience,
Shiira has a touch of elegance in its overall visual appearance that merits
a closer look. Designed specifically for use on Macs, the browser features
tabs as small preview images, and another feature called “Shelf”, which
gives users the ability to access bookmarks immediately. Shiira also has
complete RSS support and a webpage holder feature. This version is
compatible with all computers running Mac OS X 10.4

With all the content on the web, visitors may be
interested in taking some of this material with them on their iPod as they
go from place to place in their travels. podLoadr 1.0 is a great way to make
this happen, as visitors can place documents on their devices, along with
RSS feeds, radio shows, and so on. Visitors should note that while this
version will work on all computers, they will need to have iTunes 7.0.1 or
later installed.

A different way to think about ... accountability
Alex McCormick's timely essay brings to our attention one of the most
intriguing paradoxes associated with high-stakes measurement of educational
outcomes. The more importance we place on going public with the results of
an assessment, the higher the likelihood that the assessment itself will
become corrupted, undermined and ultimately of limited value. Some policy
scholars refer to the phenomenon as a variant of "Campbell's Law," named for
the late Donald Campbell, an esteemed social psychologist and methodologist.
Campbell stated his principle in 1976: "The more any quantitative social
indicator is used for social decisionmaking, the more subject it will be to
corruption pressures and the more apt it will be to distort and corrupt the
social processes it is intended to monitor."

In the specific case of the Spellings Commission
report, Alex points out that the Secretary's insistence that information be
made public on the qualities of higher education institutions will place
ever higher stakes on the underlying measurements, and that very visibility
will attenuate their effectiveness as accountability indices. How are we to
balance the public's right to know with an institution's need for the most
reliable and valid information? Alex McCormick's analysis offers us another
way to think about the issue.

If you would like to unsubscribe to Carnegie
Perspectives, use the same address and merely type "unsubscribe" in the
subject line of your email to us.

We look forward to hearing from you.

Sincerely,

Lee S. Shulman
President The Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching

Jensen Comment
The fact that an assessment provides incentives to cheat is not a reason to not
assess. The fact that we assign grades to students gives them incentives to
cheat. That does not justify ceasing to assess, because the assessment process
is in many instances the major incentive for a student to work harder and learn
more. The fact that business firms have to be audited and produce financial
statements provides incentives to cheat. That does not justify not holding
business firms accountable. Alex McCormick's analysis and Shulman's concurrence
is a bit one-sided in opposing the Spellings Commission recommendations.

Looking for a faster way to download large research
papers or massive audio file? Well, both situations can be addressed by
utilizing Orbit Downloader 1.5.4. This application is a download manager
that helps facilitate downloads of just about every type of media, and it
can also be used to resume broken or interrupted downloads. This particular
version is compatible with computers running Windows 95 and newer.

A number of people have been intimately involved in
blending the worlds of the wiki and the blog together into one efficient and
engaging application, and Wikyblog is one of the very fine results of those
ruminations. Designed as a piece of open source software, Wikyblog allows
users to create their own different data types, and to arrange various
fields and variables as they see fit. Visitors can download this software,
and also take advantage of the “how-to” section offered on the Wikyblog
homepage. This version is compatible with all computers.

I just spent
an hour at the gym only to discover
in an
articleon
Forbes.com that one day soon I may
not need to pump out the miles on
that stationary bike or groan out
those sit-ups. (Or listen to retro
'70s disco to a hip-hop beat over
the loudspeaker.) If a team at Salk
led by
Ronald Evansis right, mice
can now take a pill that will allow
them to have fit little bodies
without having to run around on
those little metal wheels. Can
humans be far behind?

As is always
the case with mouse testing, no one
knows. "We're very excited by the
potential extension to humans,"
Evans told Forbes. The
reason for his optimism is that his
new chemical turns on a genetic
switch called PPAR-d that apparently
occurs in both mice and man. It revs
up metabolism in a way similar to
what happens during a heavy workout.
According to Forbes.com,

When
given the drug in the form of a
liquid or powder, the bodies of
mice appear to act as if they
are exercising even when they
aren't, causing their metabolism
to speed up, Evans explained.
"You then have lower fatty acid
levels in your blood, lower
triglyceride levels, and lower
sugar levels," he said. "They
all appear to be linked."

When the
mice exercised after taking the new
drug, they could last twice as long,
said Evans, turning them into
"marathon mice."

Evans is
discussing his results today at the
annual
meetings
of the American Society for
Biochemistry and Molecular Biology,
in Washington, D.C.

However,
the purpose of the pill is not to
make healthy people into superhumans;
it's to treat the obese and
overweight with what may be the
long-sought "cure" for fatness--a
treatment that succeeds where diets
and diet pills often fail. This
can't come a moment too soon to
treat the rising epidemic of obesity
and diseases such as type II
diabetes that often result from
people being overweight.

This is
good news, though I admit to having
a nagging voice inside my head that
undoubtedly comes from my Puritan
ancestors, who offered admonitions
that could be summed up as "No pain,
no gain." My ancestors would have
meant this literally, in the sense
that rewards come only to those who
work hard. Yet there is another
aspect of "No pain, no gain" that
might be lost with a pill that makes
us skinny and fit. This is the part
of the pain and gain that is not
just physical, but also mental. I
exercise to stay fit but also
because it's a Zen-like experience
in which for a few hours a week I
set aside work and various concerns
and anxieties and let the blood
flow. I relax my brain and stretch
my muscles, and it feels good and
invigorating.

Evans says
that the pill will work best in
humans (if it works at all) combined
with exercise and a good diet--which
I guess means that I can work out
and get my Zen moment and also
become a marathon man.

But isn't
this cheating? Under current rules,
this pill would be illegal for
athletes, and it almost certainly
would wreck havoc with sports
already battered by waves of new
chemicals to make one run faster,
throw harder, and jump higher. But
what if, unlike steroids, this
chemical has no side effects? What
if it's served up in a flashy
container like Red Bull, or in
chewing gum?

Or in a Big
Mac?

You've got
to wonder if the fast-food industry
is cheering this latest discovery,
which might come just in time to
staunch the growing movement to
encourage healthy eating and to
remove fatty foods from public
schools.

Of course,
there are other reasons to avoid
fatty foods high in sodium (read my
blog "Killer
Salt"),
although there is little doubt that
a fat pill will keep millions of
people healthier (and leaner) than
they are now. But will people truly
be healthier in mind as well as
body?

How does soy promote weight loss? Scientist finds another clue Research shows that when
soy consumption goes up, weight goes down. A new University of Illinois study
may help scientists understand exactly how that weight loss happens.PhysOrg, May 1, 2007 ---
http://physorg.com/news97247222.html

How Famous Artists (Degas and Monet) Changed as Their
Eyesight Commenced to Fail
A Stanford researcher has studied the eye diseases in two great impressionistic
painters, Edgar Degas and Claude Monet, and recreated images of some of their
masterpieces to show how the artists' may have seen their own work. The results
may shed light on how the painters' work changed as their eyesight failed.
Tracie White, "Eye diseases changed great painters' vision of their work
later in their lives Degas, Monet had significant loss of vision from retinal
disease and cataracts, ophthalmologist and art enthusiast says," Stanford
News, April 11, 2007 ---
http://news-service.stanford.edu/news/2007/april11/med-optart-041107.html

Aspirin may be less effective heart treatment for women than men A new study shows that aspirin therapy for coronary
artery disease is four times more likely to be ineffective in women compared to
men with the same medical history.
PhysOrg, April 27, 2007 ---
http://physorg.com/news96910872.html

Research demonstrates link between domestic violence and asthma The link between environmental exposures and asthma has
been clearly described, but a new study from researchers at the Harvard School
of Public Health (HSPH) finds a strong association between domestic violence and
asthma. The study, in the upcoming June issue of the International Journal of
Epidemiology, (published advance online Feb. 28, 2007) raises questions about
the role of stress in the development of this common respiratory condition.
PhysOrg, May 1, 2007 ---
http://physorg.com/news97242385.html

Anti-dandruff compound may help fight epilepsy Researchers at Johns Hopkins have discovered that the
same ingredient used in dandruff shampoos to fight the burning, itching and
flaking on your head also can calm overexcited nerve cells inside your head,
making it a potential treatment for seizures. Results of the study can be found
online in Nature Chemical Biology. PhysOrg, April 27, 2007 ---
http://physorg.com/news96895108.html

Lesbians have more than double the risk for obesity Ulrike Boehmer of the Boston University School of
Public Health and colleagues looked at a 2002 national survey of almost 6000
women, and found that lesbians were 2.69 times more likely to be overweight.
"Lesbians at higher risk for obesity - study," Reuters, April 27, 2007
---
http://in.news.yahoo.com/070427/137/6f34u.html

Scientists Identify 7 New Diabetes Genes Researchers said yesterday that they had identified
seven new genes connected to the most common form of diabetes — the latest
result of an intensifying race between university researchers and private
companies to find genes linked to a range of diseases. The findings, presented
in three reports by university scientists and one by a private company, offer
novel insights into the biology of a disease that affects 170 million people
worldwide. And the sudden spate of new results mark an acceleration, and perhaps
a turning point, in the ability to find disease genes, the long-promised payoff
from the human genome project that began in 1989.
Nicholas Wade, The New York Times, April 28, 2007 ---
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/04/27/us/27diabetes.html

New animal study may explain why alcohol consumption increases breast
cancer risk For the first time, scientists have used a
laboratory mouse model to mimic the development of human alcohol-induced breast
cancer. PhysOrg, April 28, 2007 ---
http://physorg.com/news97034599.html

Depression may be early Parkinson's sign U.S. researchers say depression may be an early symptom
of Parkinson's disease. PhysOrg, April 28, 2007 ---
http://physorg.com/news96984011.html

Faster-Healing Artificial SkinIn work that has implications for those with severe
burns, researchers have demonstrated in mice a new way to encourage skin
regeneration.
Katherine Bourzac, MIT's Technology Review, April 30, 2007 ---
http://www.technologyreview.com/Biotech/18601/

KFC to Switch to Oil With No Trans Fat KFC's fried chicken buckets soon will be stamped with a
health message along with the famous likeness of its founder, Colonel Harland
Sanders. The banner proclaims that its chicken has zero grams of trans fat per
serving.
Bruce Schreiner, PhysOrg, April 30, 2007 ---
http://physorg.com/news97119467.html

When Maine became the first state in years to enact
a law intended to provide universal health care, one of its goals was to
cover the estimated 130,000 residents who had no insurance by 2009, starting
with 31,000 of them by the end of 2005, the program’s first year.

So far, it has not come close to that goal. Only
18,800 people have signed up for the state’s coverage and many of them
already had insurance.

. . .

But as Maine tries to reform its reforms, it faces
some particular challenges: It has large rural, poor and elderly populations
with significant health needs. It has many mom-and-pop businesses and
part-time or seasonal workers, and few employers large enough to voluntarily
offer employees insurance. And most insurers here no longer find it
profitable to sell individual coverage, leaving one carrier, Anthem Blue
Cross Blue Shield, with a majority of the market, a landscape that some
economists said could make it harder to provide broad choices and
competitive prices.

Some parts of the state’s current program — named
Dirigo after the state motto, which means “I lead” in Latin — are seen as
promising. These include the creation of a state watchdog group to promote
better health care, and an effort to control costs by asking hospitals to
rein in price increases and spending, although experts and advocates said
those cuts needed to be greater.

But a financing formula dependent on sizable
payments from private insurers has angered businesses and is being
challenged in court.

And while some people have benefited from the
subsidized insurance, which provides unusually comprehensive coverage,
others have found it too expensive. And premiums have increased, not become
more affordable, because some of those who signed up needed significant
medical care, and there are not enough enrollees, especially healthy people
unlikely to use many benefits.

“It was broad-based reform that just never got off
the ground,” said Laura Tobler, a health policy analyst with the National
Conference of State Legislatures. “The way that they funded the program
became controversial. And getting insurance was voluntary and it wasn’t that
cheap.”

Governor Baldacci said in an interview that when
the Legislature enacted the Dirigo Health Reform Act in 2003, it gave him
less money and more compromises than he had wanted. He said his
administration had now learned more about what works and what does not.

His new proposals include requiring people to have
insurance and employers to offer it and penalizing them financially if they
do not; making the subsidized insurance plan, DirigoChoice, more affordable
for small businesses; creating a separate insurance pool for high-risk
patients; instituting more Medicaid cost controls; and having the state
administer DirigoChoice, which is now sold by Anthem Blue Cross.

The proposed overhaul seems to include something
each of Maine’s constituencies can embrace and something each opposes, so
there is no guarantee which changes will be adopted by the Legislature.

“It’s very hard politically to deal with the
underlying costs of the system,” said Andrew Coburn, director of the
Institute for Health Policy at the Muskie School of Public Service in
Portland. “And Maine is just not wealthy enough to cobble together enough
resources to fully cover the uninsured.”

The first step to health is admitting that you have
a problem, and then turning off Microsoft Outlook's automatic send and
receive. The second step is very steep: "You must commit to emptying your
Inbox every time you go in there."

Have you ever emptied your inbox? It's like hacking
off a limb. With no e-mail to reply to, I feel a disorientating lightness. I
am at loose ends and have no way to fill those little holes in the day.
That's also part of the problem, according to Egan and her fellow
productivity coaches. E-mail, which is innately reactive, has become the
default method of "working." The idea behind emptying your inbox is to
convert all those e-mails into actions. You're allowed to deal with any mail
that will take less than two minutes to answer. Otherwise, you should file
your outstanding messages into folders such as "Pending," "Reply To,"
"Archive," and "YouTube Links" and deal with them as a unit later, when
you've mapped out your day and polished off those urgent TPS reports. Egan
notes that people have a tendency to simply open their inboxes and scroll up
and down for several minutes, knocking off two or three messages so they
feel better. She calls this inefficient process "e-noodling." You get the
e-idea yet?

A writing teacher is sometimes like the Michael
Douglas detective in “Basic Instinct,” trying to decide whether Sharon
Stone’s sultry novelist is toying with him in her potboilers or telegraphing
plans for murder. Teachers also know that literature — “Hamlet,” “Oedipus
Rex,” “Anna Karenina” — is pocked with mayhem or self-destruction in which
violence is essential. As C. J. Hribal, a professor of English at Marquette,
said, Oedipus’s rapping his knuckles would not have packed the same tragic
wallop as Oedipus’s tearing out his eyes.

But when do violent passages need watching, even
attending to? And how does a teacher prepare a response that is therapeutic
rather than invasive?

There is a case for delving deeper, teachers say,
when the darkness of the prose matches the student’s mood or behavior. A
Sylvia Plath-like exploration of depression may be more alarming when it is
matched by a Sylvia Plath-like withdrawal and deep unhappiness.

At Virginia Tech, Mr. Cho’s teachers stepped in
when he wrote his play “Richard McBeef,” in which a teenager threatens to
kill his stepfather to prevent his own rape, because Mr. Cho was also
frightening students with erratic behavior, like asking to be called
Question Mark. One teacher tutored Mr. Cho, another banished him, others
alerted deans. Still, the authorities never put all their concerns together
to make a case for his removal.

Mr. Chee, Amherst’s visiting writer, recalled that
when he was teaching graduate students in New York, one wrote a memoir in
which she told of having been a closeted lesbian preparing to become a nun
and trying to kill herself.

“I didn’t go on red alert precisely, even though I
was deeply alarmed,” Mr. Chee said. “I wrote back to her, ‘Where’s the
chapter where the character talks to a therapist about trying to kill
herself?’ ”

He learned that the student had been treated at a
hospital for a suicide attempt but had never discussed it with her
therapist. He urged her to do so.

Another student of Mr. Chee’s, whom he taught at
Wesleyan, wrote a story about a girl who cuts her flesh. In conference, she
confided that writing about cutting was not quieting her own impulses. She
was not in therapy, so Mr. Chee told her how therapy had helped him.

But writing teachers face a quandary: What some
observers consider warning signs could be misleading, and intervening could
squelch a young writer’s voice.

“A creative writing class should be a place where
you can write things that are disturbing without people thinking you’re
disturbed,” said Sam Maurey, a junior in Mr. Chee’s class. Moreover, as Mr.
Chee explained, there is a “typical male student” who “writes things that
try to shock,” and these violence-filled works need to be seen in
perspective.

“They break certain cultural taboos, but in those
cases, the students are usually quite socialized and not the kind of
shut-down loner we saw at Virginia Tech,” Mr. Chee said.

Continued in article

How Not to Respond to Virginia Tech — ISuch responses by colleges send students who seek help
for mental illness the wrong message. When students have done the right thing
and reached out for help, removing them from colleges sends the message that
they have done something wrong and are not wanted on campus. It also
inappropriately isolates these students from their community and the supports
they need during a time of crisis. Moreover, these policies may actually
increase the risk of harm by discouraging students from getting help for
themselves or others.
Karen Bower, Inside Higher Ed, May 1, 2007 ---
http://www.insidehighered.com/views/2007/05/01/bower

We should not be rushing to install
text-message-based warning systems. At the low
cost of $1 per student per year, you might ask what
the downside could be? Well, the real cost is the $1
per student that we don’t spend on mental health
support, where we really need to spend it. And, what
do you get for your $1? A system that will send an
emergency text to the cell phone number of every
student who is registered with the service. If we
acknowledge that many campuses still don’t have the
most current mailing address for some of our
students who live off-campus, is it realistic to
expect that students are going to universally supply
us with their cell phone numbers? You could argue
that students are flocking to sign up for this
service on the campuses that currently provide it
(less than 50 nationally), but that is driven by the
panic of current events. Next fall, when the shock
has worn off, apathy will inevitably return, and
voluntary sign-up rates will drop. How about
mandating that students participate? What about the
costs of the bureaucracy we will need to collect and
who will input this data? Who will track which
students have yet to give us their numbers, remind
them, and hound them to submit the information? Who
will update this database as students switch cell
numbers mid-year, which many do? That’s more than a
full-time job, with implementation already costing
more than the $1 per student. Some
students want their privacy. They won’t want
administrators to have their cell number. Some
students don’t have cell phones. Many students do
not have text services enabled on their phones. More
added cost. Many professors instruct students to
turn off their phones in classrooms.

Texting is useless.
It’s useless on the field for athletes, while
students are swimming, sleeping, showering, etc.
And, perhaps most dangerously, texting an alert may
send that alert to a psychopath who is also
signed-up for the system, telling him exactly what
administrators know, what the emergency plan is, and
where to go to effect the most harm. Would a text
system create a legal duty that colleges and
universities do not have, a duty of universal
warning? What happens in a crisis if the system is
overloaded, as were cellphone lines in Blacksburg?
What happens if the data entry folks mistype a
number, and a student who needs warning does not get
one? We will be sued for negligence. We need to
spend this time, money and effort on the real
problem: mental health.

We should consider installing loudspeakers
throughout campus. This technology has
potentially better coverage than text messages, with
much less cost. Virginia Tech used such loudspeakers
to good effect during the shootings.

We should not rush to perform criminal background
checks (CBCs) on all incoming students. A North
Carolina task force studied this issue after two
2004 campus shootings, and decided that the
advantages were not worth the disadvantages. You
might catch a random dangerous applicant, but most
students who enter with criminal backgrounds were
minors when they committed their crimes, and their
records may have been sealed or expunged. If your
student population is largely of non-traditional
age, CBCs may reveal more, but then you have to
weigh the cost and the question of whether you are
able to
perform due diligence on screening the results of
the checks if someone is red-flagged. How will you
determine which students who have criminal histories
are worthy of admission and which are not? And,
there is always the reality that if you perform a
check on all incoming students and the college
across the street does not, the student with the
criminal background will apply there and not to you.
If you decide to check incoming students, what will
you do about current students? Will you do a
state-level check, or a 50-state and federal check?
Will your admitted applicants be willing to wait the
30-days that it takes to get the results? Other
colleges who admitted them are also waiting for an
answer. The comprehensive check can cost $80 per
student. We need to spend this time, money and
effort on the real problem: mental health.

We should not be considering whether to allow
students to install their own locks on their
dormitory room doors. Credit Fox News Live for
this deplorably dumb idea. If we let students change
their locks, residential life and campus law
enforcement will not be able to key into student
rooms when they overdose on alcohol or try to commit
suicide. This idea would prevent us from saving
lives, rather than help to protect members of our
community. The Virginia Tech killer could have shot
through a lock, no matter whether it was the
original or a retrofit. This is our property, and we
need to have access to it. We need to focus our
attention on the real issue: mental health.

Perhaps the most preposterous suggestion of all
is that we need to relax our campus weapons bans so
that armed members of our communities can defend
themselves. We should not allow weapons on college
campuses. Imagine you are seated in Norris Hall,
facing the whiteboard at the front of the room. The
shooter enters from the back and begins shooting.
What good is your gun going to do at this point?
Many pro-gun advocates have talked about the
deterrent and defense values of a well-armed student
body, but none of them have mentioned the potential
collateral criminal consequences of armed students:
increases in armed robbery, muggings, escalation of
interpersonal and relationship violence, etc.
Virginia, like most states, cannot keep guns out of
the hands of those with potentially lethal mental
health crises. When we talk
about arming students, we’d be arming them too. We
need to focus our attention
on the real issue: mental health.

We should establish lockdown protocols that are
specific to the nature of the threat. Lockdowns
are an established mass-protection tactic. They can
isolate perpetrators, insulate targets from threats
and restrict personal movement away from a dangerous
line-of-fire. But, if lockdowns are just a random
response, they have the potential to lock students
in with a still-unidentified perpetrator. If not
used correctly, they have the potential to lock
students into facilities from which they need
immediate egress for safety
reasons. And, if not enforced when imposed,
lockdowns expose us to the potential liability of
not following our own policies. We should also
establish protocols for judicious use of
evacuations. When police at Virginia Tech herded
students out of buildings and across the Drill
Field, it was based on their assessment of a low
risk that someone was going to open fire on students
as they fled out into the open, and a high risk of
leaving the occupants of
certain buildings in situ, making evacuation from a
zone of danger an appropriate escape method.

We should not exclude from admission or expel
students with mental health conditions, unless they
pose a substantial threat of harm to themselves or
others. Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act
prohibits colleges and universities from
discrimination in admission against those with
disabilities. It also prohibits colleges and
universities from suspending or expelling disabled
students, including those who are suicidal, unless
the student is deemed to be a direct threat of
substantial harm in an objective process based on
the most current medical assessment available. Many
colleges do provide health surveys to incoming
students, and when those surveys disclose mental
health conditions, we need to consider what
appropriate follow-up should occur as a result. The
Virginia Tech shooter was schizophrenic or mildly
autistic, and identifying those disabilities early
on and providing support, accommodation — and
potentially intervention — is our issue.

We should consider means and mechanisms for early
intervention with students who exhibit behavioral
issues, but we should not profile loners. At the
University of South Carolina, the Behavioral
Intervention Team makes many early catches of
students whose behavior is threatening, disruptive
or potentially self-injurious. By working with
faculty and staff at opening communication and
support, the model is enhancing campus safety in a
way that many other campuses are not. In the
aftermath of what happened at Virginia
Tech, I hope many campuses are considering a model
designed to help raise flags for early screening and
intervention. Many students are loners, isolated,
withdrawn, pierced, tattooed, dyed, Wiccan, skate
rats, fantasy gamers or otherwise outside the
“mainstream". This variety enlivens the richness of
college campuses, and offers layers of culture that
quilt the fabric of diverse communities. Their
preferences and differences cannot and should not be
cause for fearing them or suspecting them. But, when
any member of the community
starts a downward spiral along the continuum of
violence, begins to lose contact with reality, goes
off their medication regimen, threatens, disrupts,
or otherwise gains our attention with unhealthy or
dangerous patterns, we can’t be bystanders any
longer. Our willingness to intervene can make all
the difference.

All of the pundits insist that random violence can’t
be predicted, but many randomly violent people
exhibit a pattern of detectable disintegration of
self, often linked to suicide. People around them
perceive it. We can all be better attuned to those
patterns and our protocols for communicating our
concerns to those who have the ability to address
them. This will focus our attention on the real
issue: mental health.

She noted that Los Angeles schools already have
implemented most of the proposals now pending for districts
across the state, and among the changes are:

"Mom" and "dad" and "husband" and "wife" would
have to be edited from all texts.

Cheerleading and sports teams would have to be
gender-neutral.

Prom kings and queens would be banned, or if
featured, would have to be gender neutral so that the king
could be female and the queen male.

Gender-neutral bathrooms could be required for
those confused about their gender identity.

A male who believes he really is female would be
allowed into the women's restroom, and a woman believing
herself a male would be allowed into a men's room.

Even scientific
information, such has statistics showing AIDS rates in the
homosexual community, could be banned.

"It's embarrassing that we've
got kids who can't pass their exit exams, but we add all sorts
of complications [to school]," she told WND.

She cited an informational
document published by the Gay-Straight Alliance Network and the
Transgender Law Center.

Continued in article

Humor

From the mouths of babes (Readers Digest, March 2007)

The doctor asked a five year old girl which arm she preferred
for her vaccination shot.

"Yours," she replied.

Forwarded by Maria

The Broken Mower

When our lawn mower broke and wouldn't run, my wife kept hinting to me that I
should get it fixed. But, somehow I always had something else to take care of
first, the truck, the car, playing golf - always something more important to me.

Finally she thought of a clever way to make her point. When I arrived home
one day, I found her seated in the tall grass, busily snipping away with a tiny
pair of sewing scissors.

I watched silently for a short time and then went into the house. I was gone
only a minute, and when I came out again I handed her a toothbrush. I said,
"When you finish cutting the grass, you might as well sweep the driveway."

The doctors say I will walk again, but I will always have a limp.

Moral of this story: Marriage is a relationship in which one person is always
right, and the other is the husband.

The word moodle is an acronym for "modular
object-oriented dynamic learning environment", which is quite a mouthful.
The Scout Report stated the following about Moodle 1.7. It is a
tremendously helpful opens-source e-learning platform. With Moodle,
educators can create a wide range of online courses with features that
include forums, quizzes, blogs, wikis, chat rooms, and surveys. On the
Moodle website, visitors can also learn about other features and read about
recent updates to the program. This application is compatible with computers
running Windows 98 and newer or Mac OS X and newer.

AECM (Educators) http://pacioli.loyola.edu/aecm/AECM is an email Listserv list which provides a
forum for discussions of all hardware and software which can be useful
in any way for accounting education at the college/university level.
Hardware includes all platforms and peripherals. Software includes
spreadsheets, practice sets, multimedia authoring and presentation
packages, data base programs, tax packages, World Wide Web
applications, etc

CPAS-L
(Practitioners) http://pacioli.loyola.edu/cpas-l/CPAS-L provides a forum for discussions of all
aspects of the practice of accounting. It provides an unmoderated
environment where issues, questions, comments, ideas, etc. related to
accounting can be freely discussed. Members are welcome to take an
active role by posting to CPAS-L or an inactive role by just
monitoring the list. You qualify for a free subscription if you are
either a CPA or a professional accountant in public accounting,
private industry, government or education. Others will be denied
access.

Yahoo
(Practitioners) http://groups.yahoo.com/group/xyztalkThis
forum is for CPAs to discuss the activities of the AICPA. This can be
anything from the CPA2BIZ portal to the XYZ initiative or
anything else that relates to the AICPA.